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The count is probably endless.
The difference for South Jersey baseball fan Jake McKenna, however, is that his dream is beginning to come true.
After being passed up in the significantly shortened 2020 MLB Draft (5 rounds instead of 40), the Ocean City High School senior had a hunch his hometown team would be calling.
“I’ve been talking to the Phillies for the past couple months," he told KYW Newsradio, "and the night before the draft, they were saying I was in the mix for the fourth and fifth round, and they knew I was super-signable. I mean, I really wanted to go. So, I was kinda expecting the call on Sunday. And there it was."
Cole Hamels, the 2008 World Series and NLCS MVP, was his favorite Phil growing up.
“Left-handed pitcher just like me," he said. "And I just always respected the way he played and how he never showed any emotion on the mound and is just, always, very dominant.”
McKenna says it’s been a rough spring for high school baseball players because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I wasn’t able to show my talent to the newer scouts, but I’ve been going to this baseball performance center — it’s a training facility right in my area — and we’ve just been throwing to live hitters every week, lifting, just staying in shape, staying ready. And that’s really helped out a lot."
A minor league season is very much in doubt, but McKenna said the Phillies told him they’ll have Zoom calls in the next couple of weeks, and they're hoping to have an instructional league in Clearwater in the fall.
Either way, so far, McKenna has completed step one of a childhood Big League dream. If he ever gets the chance to one day pitch at Citizens Bank Park for the Phillies, McKenna said, “That would be the peak of my life right there. That would just be awesome.”